Looking back on my education, I can clearly see the differences in how my teachers have taught. Between lesson plans, lab work, exams, group work and even review sessions each teacher runs their classroom slightly different due to their individual mentalities. While this "mentality" might be easy to spot when a student in high school, it is infinitely harder to develop when putting yourself in the position of the teacher. I am writing this teaching philosophy with that in mind. I understand that this philosophy will most likely develop and grow as I do as a teacher, but this framework of my ideals is a great sketch for the type of teacher that I hope to be.
My teaching philosophy will firstly, and most importantly, be to make sure that all my students are comfortable with my classroom and with me. I would never want to put any student in an uncomfortable position, and definitely believe that it is more important to maintain good relationships than it is to understand minute details about a subject. This does not mean that I will not also be content oriented, however, I will just want to make sure the classroom is a safe and enjoyable place to be. I also want the students to be able to learn in a variety of ways. I feel the best learning takes place when connections are made (scaffolding scaffolding scaffolding!) and would like to use this for elaboration on topics they may have already learned. More specifically, I would like to employ the following methods of teaching in my classroom:
using colored pencils to differentiate from diagrams or cycles of handouts that I will give the students
many quizzes with multiple opportunities fro extra credit, in order to give students a cushion grade-wise
group work whenever possible
using biology in connection with current events or their current lives as student
I am hoping to open up students to the "world of science" in a way that helps them satisfy their own curiosity...even if that curiosity has to be cultivated first. I completely understand that some students just absolutely do not care about a subject. That was how I was, and in a way continue to feel, about history classes. In high school it was like pulling teeth for me to learn about the Ming Dynasty, or to remember the different dates of important battles in the Revolutionary War. I never truly cared about who was president at what time nor did I care about what decisions they made. My American History teacher changed that for me. He knew that I liked learning about advances in the medical field, in addition to other students, and started putting up facts about presidents during their own time period. These facts would be written on the board, and were just a little engaging piece of trivia that helped me remember who was president during what time while also letting me in on what was happening in the field of science. Not all of them were about science, some just about what the name of the president's pet was, or that the president at the time was the fattest one in history. It didn't matter what the fact was, it was just something that helped me remember. This is absolutely one of the engaging pieces of my classroom that I would like to employ.
In addition to the trivia, I would like to have students ask questions about science in daily lives. Last year I wrote a lesson plan on the journey of a ham and cheese, instead of just saying digestion. I would like to have lessons centered around things that students could relate to. For example, science of sex instead of just calling something meiosis. These small changes will help students feel like the things that they are learning are much more exciting, even if the only change is to the name of the lesson. I really believe that titles of units or lessons make a difference, since it has worked for me. Engaging names and flashy teaching methods may not make me the best teacher, but I do believe they will help me hold the students attention long enough to create the spark of curiosity. No student wants to pay attention when they know class is about chromosomes splitting and forming two cells, but if they know that class is about science of sex then I think they would be much more awake.
Beyond these philosophies and methods, I believe that students will want to learn when they see that a teacher is very excited about a topic. This has to be prefaced with students feeling a connection to the teacher, but hopefully I will have already achieved their attention and respect. I will always try to be excited about the upcoming topics and be as engaging as possible. There are many topics of science that I enjoy, but the few that I truly hate (including "sig figs" and the nitrogen cycle) I will do my best to remain engaging. I can try to make these topics enjoyable, but if it seems to be a struggle I would hopefully follow the footsteps of my high school biology teacher. He really disliked a handful of lessons that he had to teach, and warned us of this at the beginning of the school year. He told us that there are certain topics that we would not enjoy learning, that they were hard and boring and that honestly he does not enjoy teaching them. But he also promised that if we gave him our full attention during these lessons and got what we had to get done, then he would let us watch a "Body Stories" video the next class period. This method never failed. Mainly because we always wanted to watch a video when there was an opportunity to, but also because when we were listening and paying attention we got enough work done that we were not losing the extra class period by watching the video. Even if I do not use this method exactly, I remember respecting that my teacher did not like certain topics. It made me feel as if it was fine to not enjoy certain lessons, as long as you got enough work done and remembered that it was only one annoying lesson in a long unit and there were many more to enjoy.
Overall my teaching philosophy centers around making students feel comfortable enough with me as a teacher to enjoy the subject and learn as much as possible. I want my students to have answers to their questions, in addition to being able to remember those answer later on in life. The ability to form questions alone is something that I hope to cultivate in my students. In addition to these, however, I do want my students to perform well in any type of testing environment. I hope that I can really bring together my students and help them enjoy learning as much as I enjoy teaching. I really want to cultivate a strong cooperative and safe classroom environment, as seen earlier in my teaching philosophy, while still paying attention to the needs of all my students and the curriculum. I understand the complications in accomplishing all of these tasks, which brings me back to the point of growing and changing as a teacher. I do understand that there is always room for growth and change, and I am definitely open to these changes that inevitably will come to my teaching methods and ideals. I also believe that this teaching philosophy will be open enough to develop various modifications for each of my classrooms since they will all have various dynamics. I believe this philosophy will help me structure my classroom in an effective and helpful way for both me as a teacher and my future students.
My teaching philosophy will firstly, and most importantly, be to make sure that all my students are comfortable with my classroom and with me. I would never want to put any student in an uncomfortable position, and definitely believe that it is more important to maintain good relationships than it is to understand minute details about a subject. This does not mean that I will not also be content oriented, however, I will just want to make sure the classroom is a safe and enjoyable place to be. I also want the students to be able to learn in a variety of ways. I feel the best learning takes place when connections are made (scaffolding scaffolding scaffolding!) and would like to use this for elaboration on topics they may have already learned. More specifically, I would like to employ the following methods of teaching in my classroom:
I am hoping to open up students to the "world of science" in a way that helps them satisfy their own curiosity...even if that curiosity has to be cultivated first. I completely understand that some students just absolutely do not care about a subject. That was how I was, and in a way continue to feel, about history classes. In high school it was like pulling teeth for me to learn about the Ming Dynasty, or to remember the different dates of important battles in the Revolutionary War. I never truly cared about who was president at what time nor did I care about what decisions they made. My American History teacher changed that for me. He knew that I liked learning about advances in the medical field, in addition to other students, and started putting up facts about presidents during their own time period. These facts would be written on the board, and were just a little engaging piece of trivia that helped me remember who was president during what time while also letting me in on what was happening in the field of science. Not all of them were about science, some just about what the name of the president's pet was, or that the president at the time was the fattest one in history. It didn't matter what the fact was, it was just something that helped me remember. This is absolutely one of the engaging pieces of my classroom that I would like to employ.
In addition to the trivia, I would like to have students ask questions about science in daily lives. Last year I wrote a lesson plan on the journey of a ham and cheese, instead of just saying digestion. I would like to have lessons centered around things that students could relate to. For example, science of sex instead of just calling something meiosis. These small changes will help students feel like the things that they are learning are much more exciting, even if the only change is to the name of the lesson. I really believe that titles of units or lessons make a difference, since it has worked for me. Engaging names and flashy teaching methods may not make me the best teacher, but I do believe they will help me hold the students attention long enough to create the spark of curiosity. No student wants to pay attention when they know class is about chromosomes splitting and forming two cells, but if they know that class is about science of sex then I think they would be much more awake.
Beyond these philosophies and methods, I believe that students will want to learn when they see that a teacher is very excited about a topic. This has to be prefaced with students feeling a connection to the teacher, but hopefully I will have already achieved their attention and respect. I will always try to be excited about the upcoming topics and be as engaging as possible. There are many topics of science that I enjoy, but the few that I truly hate (including "sig figs" and the nitrogen cycle) I will do my best to remain engaging. I can try to make these topics enjoyable, but if it seems to be a struggle I would hopefully follow the footsteps of my high school biology teacher. He really disliked a handful of lessons that he had to teach, and warned us of this at the beginning of the school year. He told us that there are certain topics that we would not enjoy learning, that they were hard and boring and that honestly he does not enjoy teaching them. But he also promised that if we gave him our full attention during these lessons and got what we had to get done, then he would let us watch a "Body Stories" video the next class period. This method never failed. Mainly because we always wanted to watch a video when there was an opportunity to, but also because when we were listening and paying attention we got enough work done that we were not losing the extra class period by watching the video. Even if I do not use this method exactly, I remember respecting that my teacher did not like certain topics. It made me feel as if it was fine to not enjoy certain lessons, as long as you got enough work done and remembered that it was only one annoying lesson in a long unit and there were many more to enjoy.
Overall my teaching philosophy centers around making students feel comfortable enough with me as a teacher to enjoy the subject and learn as much as possible. I want my students to have answers to their questions, in addition to being able to remember those answer later on in life. The ability to form questions alone is something that I hope to cultivate in my students. In addition to these, however, I do want my students to perform well in any type of testing environment. I hope that I can really bring together my students and help them enjoy learning as much as I enjoy teaching. I really want to cultivate a strong cooperative and safe classroom environment, as seen earlier in my teaching philosophy, while still paying attention to the needs of all my students and the curriculum. I understand the complications in accomplishing all of these tasks, which brings me back to the point of growing and changing as a teacher. I do understand that there is always room for growth and change, and I am definitely open to these changes that inevitably will come to my teaching methods and ideals. I also believe that this teaching philosophy will be open enough to develop various modifications for each of my classrooms since they will all have various dynamics. I believe this philosophy will help me structure my classroom in an effective and helpful way for both me as a teacher and my future students.